By combining the National Ignition Facility (NIF) laser and ultra-light metal foams, researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) have produced the brightest X-ray source to date — about twice as bright as previous solid metal versions.
These ultra-bright, high-energy X-rays can be used to image and study extremely dense matter like the plasmas created during inertial confinement fusion. The team’s work was recently published in Physical Review E.
LLNL scientist Jeff Colvin compared the source to the machine used to find cavities at a dentist.
“Your dentist’s machine creates an electron beam that is crashed into a heavy metal plate. The electrons in the beam interact with the electrons bound to the metal atoms to create X-rays,” he said. “At NIF, we use the high-power laser beam instead of an electron beam to make the X-rays by ‘crashing’ the beam into silver atoms and creating a plasma.”